You might think the group From China to Appalachia comes from two different worlds. But for the trio, they find more similarities than differences each time they pick up their instruments.
“We came together and this serendipitous moment of joy happened when we found that there were amazing correlations between Appalachian old-time music and Chinese music,” said Cathy Fink, the group’s clawhammer banjo player. “We started finding music in Appalachian repertoire that resembled Chinese pieces and vice versa.
“We were able to put them into arrangements and go, ‘Oh, look at this! We are actually related,” Fink said, laughing.
From China to Appalachia will bring its fusion of American-meets-Asian music and beyond to the Jackson Theatre at 7 p.m., Saturday, June 6 — a show brought to the renovated Jonesborough theatre in partnership with the International Storytelling Center.
Formed during the pandemic, the group blends Grammy-winning musicians Fink and Marcy Marxer’s folk, roots, and Appalachian music with Chao Tian’s Chinese classical music training. And it all started with a bit of confusion that would change Tian’s life.
Fink served as an advisor and mentor at the music center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland, where Tian was also an artist in residence. Fink and Marxer invited Tian over for a jam session — a foreign concept to the musician who was classically trained in China.
“She thought this thing was about food because it was a ‘jam’ session,” Fink recalled. “She comes in and we say, ‘play something.’ And she goes, ‘Oh. Where’s the music?’ And we told her we don’t really use music. We’re just jamming.
“At that point in her life, she had never just jammed. It literally changed her life. She said, ‘I’m not going back to the old stuff I used to do.’ We started gradually doing some things together and playing together.”
Tian plays the Chinese classical hammered dulcimer known as the yangqin. Fink primarily plays the clawhammer, old-time banjo, and Marxer usually plays the four-string cello banjo.
“Those three instruments together make a sound that no one else is making,” Fink said.
However, storytelling is what helps China to Appalachia’s music translate to their listeners.
“Storytelling ties into everything,” Fink said. “We’re not playing a lot of songs people have heard before. We aren’t playing hits off the radio. We’re playing a very unique repertoire. So the stories that introduce pieces of our repertoire are really critical to what we do.”
To tell the story of “The Legend of the White Snake,” they use an ancient form of storytelling called a crankie. The scroll includes 70 feet of Tian’s artwork that helps illustrate the story.
“It’s an old form of storytelling,” Fink said. “It often goes along with Appalachian ballads or other kinds of songs. In this case, we adapted this old form to fit this particular legend with this song. The artwork is beautiful, and it really is about telling the story in multiple different forms.”
Their group’s name is “From China to Appalachia,” but audiences can expect plenty of cultural detours throughout their show, including a Russian tale, among many others.
“Our show is an adventure,” Fink said. “It’s an adventure in musicology, in connecting sounds that people wouldn’t have been able to imagine. It’s very much a community-building program. When people say things like ‘I didn’t know how much I needed that,’ something was missing for them.”
From China to Appalachia is also all about introducing people to new stories and songs with emphasis on connection.
“That feeling of connection, that’s what we do in music and storytelling,” Fink said. “That’s where the two really come together. We help facilitate that feeling of connection that human beings absolutely need.”
“We live in an era where connection can be fleeting. People think they’re connected because of everything they’re doing on social media, but it’s not the same as being connected in person. I feel like that is part of what people are missing. They’re beginning to understand that. We show how connected we can be, even when we haven’t met before. That is the heart of storytelling.”